CANDIDATE HARRIS, A CDC HEARING, AND A DATA DISPUTE

politicopro.com

July 29, 2024 2:52 pm

What do we know about Harris’ health care priorities? 

Ever since President Joe Biden said he wouldn’t seek a second term and endorsed Harris, there’s been a scramble to parse out her views in policy areas. My colleagues on the health team took a look at her record — in the Senate, and as former California attorney general — to give us some clues.

The overarching themes: taking on big health care, advocating for abortion rights and attempts at improving maternal health outcomes.

My colleagues also reported on the top health care priorities for some of her potential vice presidential picks and how the healthcare sector is receiving the news that she’s the all-but-certain 2024 Democratic presidential candidate.

CDC on the defensive 

The CDC took a bashing from House Republicans — who claimed the agency has been “distracted” from its core mission — at an Energy and Commerce committee hearing this week, your Pro Health Care PM host reports with POLITICO’s Toni Odejimi.

House Republicans argued that the agency has focused too much in recent years on programs they deem unnecessary or better left to other agencies.

“[The CDC] is trying to do too much,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas.) “If you try to do too much, you’re really doing nothing.”

The agency pushed back — highlighting work it deems vital to public health, like tracking overdose deaths and responding to the avian flu outbreak.

Epic vs. Integritort

A dispute between electronic health records giant Epic and Integritort, a company that provides analysis of medical records for legal cases, is rattling the health tech industry, POLITICO’s Ben Leonard reports.

Electronic health records giant Epic claims that Integritort incorrectly accessed its patient data through Carequality, a nonprofit framework for sharing health data. Epic says Integritort retrieved the data by falsely claiming it was for treatment purposes, which made it easier to gain access without a physician’s authorization in violation of Carequality’s rules. Integritort denies the allegations.

The controversy underscores what legal and health tech industry experts say is a lack of clarity in data governance and oversight that threatens industry efforts to securely facilitate medical data flow.